Grand Prix Rejects

Don't know what's happening with this thread for this race, so I am opening this so there can be a general discussion around candidates.

Prior to the race, I would have thought the following would sum it up. (Found this image initially through a Google search). Even the author seemed to suggest it was worthy of a papaya or two!



Post-race, however, there only seems to be one candidate. Monsieur Romain Grosjean.

RoGro's decision to mash the throttle after whilst spinning at the start would normally take the day. You could also look at Ferrari for being way off Mercedes, having a mechanical failure befall Kimi, and stuffing Vettel's strategy.

But for just pure embarrassment factor, I really can't see past Spainish GP.

Tough to look beyond ma boi RoGro for the time being.

Not a great time to be a Stoke/RoGro fanboy really.

Grosjean is my pick again. I believe we'll have our first back-2-back winner since Kimi for his last two races at Lotus in 2013 if Romain 'wins' (sorry if that's a bit of a mouthful ).

Romain Grosjean is a slam duck.

The second pick... weather forecasts. 80% chance of rain, but it was very dry out there.

Romain - did he really think re-entering the track whilst making a smoke screen was gonna work? There are better drivers around.

My pick is Daniel Ricciardo for his lazy spin under the safety car.

RoGro he seems to be reverting back to the 2009 driver.....

Giving the Reject of the Race award to the same person for two races in a row seems unduly harsh and moreover a bit boring (I also don't think that's ever been done before in the history of F1 Rejects, probably with good reason too). I'm nominating that lick of paint in the pitlane.

EDIT: Okay, it has, exactly once. Still not changing my nomination. It's admittedly somewhat amusing doing it to a world champion, but it doesn't have the same impact with an above-average underdog driver in an underdog team.

Ferrari had a bad weekend, two power unit related issues fir Raikkonen, one of them in the race dropping him out of 4th place. The car has huge problems with tyre wear, and with the cool conditions and aero-heavy track to boot, they were simply off the pace, the third fastest car in the race.

Ricciardo was off Verstappen's pace all weekend (yes, 0.002 in Q3 but still) and had an unseen spin in the race under VSC. His second stint was perplexing, he set two lap records, and in between his laps were slower than Magnussen behind.

Sirotkin was being comfortably beaten by El Quebecois, and had a very odd-looking spin. He finished a loooong way off Ericsson (the gap was a minute at one point).

There is only one person who was probably worse than all of the above combined. Two gravel excursions in practice, crushed by teammate in quali, and the race....well, this wasn't a good week to be Romain Grosjean. But more than anything it's his instinctive reaction to find others to blame that I find amazing. Okay, he didn;t blame Ericsson at Baku, but he didn't deny it either. He would surely have seen Marcus in his mirrors, and a driver should be aware of the difference between an impact caused by another car tagging you, versus a simple spin in windy conditions. And the first thing he said on the radio after the crash was 'Kevin made a mistake, I was in dirty air...'.

The excuses are drying up, and if he can't improve quickly the only seat available for him will be a cashier's seat in a bank in Geneva.

I haven't even seen the race yet and I'm nominating the Spainish Grand Prix writing

Only two candidates. RoGro or #Spainish.

But, I'll introduce a third: Sergey Sirotkin

Yes, he had an extra pit stop. Yes, he had a few problems in the race. Yes, his seat was not comfy, according to him.

Don't let that distract you from the fact that he finished nearly a minute behind the next driver up the road. Not since the days of HRT, I think, has anybody finished three laps down almost on pace alone. That was an absolute stinker of a race for him.

Grosjean for his response to losing control and running wide - he must have held that throttle wide open for five seconds. Looked like a combination of panic, anger and frustration.

I'm feeling more forgiving towards Romain for his lap 1 reaction to losing the rear end after Kevin suddenly appeared to be heading stage left , so on Sunday's performance I'll consider Sergey for being so far behind ( but surely there was something more to it , and which we don't know, after all his quallie was OK) .

Plenty of spins and off-tracks , so lots of drivers caught out, but on overall weekend performance perhaps Brendon is in the frame - significantly slower than (admittedly rapid) Gasly and his P3 smash was due to placing the car wrong , not because of some more tricky to judge variable involving wind, track, tyre temp etc. It was just careless. And then in a race of attrition- he wasnt quick enough to benefit

yannicksamlad wrote:I'm feeling more forgiving towards Romain for his lap 1 reaction to losing the rear end after Kevin suddenly appeared to be heading stage left , so on Sunday's performance I'll consider Sergey for being so far behind ( but surely there was something more to it , and which we don't know, after all his quallie was OK) .

Plenty of spins and off-tracks , so lots of drivers caught out, but on overall weekend performance perhaps Brendon is in the frame - significantly slower than (admittedly rapid) Gasly and his P3 smash was due to placing the car wrong , not because of some more tricky to judge variable involving wind, track, tyre temp etc. It was just careless. And then in a race of attrition- he wasnt quick enough to benefit

I think I'm in 100% agreement here. What Grosjean did was a bit embarassing but not to the level of what happened in Baku. At least this time there's a somewhat valid excuse.

Meanwhile, someone spelt the name of the event wrong in BIG CAPITAL LETTERS in the pitlane. That writing was surely there for several days before someone called them out on it, by which time it had already become a meme (or something. Someone mentioned that it had somewhere).

With voting system there is less chance of obscure selections so I prefer #SpainishGP too.

Everyone has gone for the slam dunk choices so to add some variety I choose...

Sky's Barcelona city grid walk - Seriously what the hell was THAT!?

Despite Romain Grosjean's attempt to win two RoTRs on the bounce (and reclaim his "first lap nutcase" reputation from 2009-12), for me the best example of sheer ineptitude this weekend has to be whoever thought "Spainish" was the correct spelling.

I can't really look past Grosjean this time out. Spinning on to the racing line at the start while giving the throttle all the beans in the world and taking out a couple of other drivers while he was at it is just too rejectful to disregard.

This Could Be You wrote:Despite Romain Grosjean's attempt to win two RoTRs on the bounce (and reclaim his "first lap nutcase" reputation from 2009-12), for me the best example of sheer ineptitude this weekend has to be whoever thought "Spainish" was the correct spelling.

Perhaps a supporter of the Catalan separatist movement who reckoned it was at most a "Spain-ish" Grand Prix due to being hosted in Catalunya?

A new situation is lending itself to bring nominated for RotR: https://www.autosport.com/f1/news/13608 ... -criticism

The poll is up! Get posting!

The poll is over, and the Reject of the Race for the Spanish Grand Prix is The Spainish Grand Prix! After a second week in a row of Rmn Grsjn bringing some mediocrity to the grid, and with very slow-paced Williams drivers who shall remain nameless, we got our first abstract winner of the year. Somebody, deliberately or otherwise, wrote "Spainish Grand Prix" in big letters in the pit-lane. The most basic spelling mistake or the most petty protest, this firmly wins this race's award.